VideoCoin AMA with Wolf Crypto
The VideoCoin Network is a decentralized video platform, powered by the VideoCoin token (VID) from the VideoCoin Development Association and its strategic, advisory, and implementation partner, next generation video company Live Planet.
By using the blockchain in combination with unused distributed computing resources, the VideoCoin Network brings significant innovation and cost reductions to processing, storing and distributing video content on and across the Internet.
VideoCoin is the first PoW network to reward miners (called workers) in fiat as opposed to tokens. Clients using the VideoCoin Network pay for services in fiat which is then distributed to miners and stakers in fiat based off their contribution to processed work on the network.
In this sense, VideoCoin stakes a claim to be the first Fiat-Based blockchain business.
VideoCoin (VID) will list on Kucoin on August 27th. You can see the token listing details in the link below.
You can also read an in-depth research report, produced by KuCoin, on VideoCoin in the link below.
You can also visit the VideoCoin Telegram channel or VideoCoin website for further details.
Here’s what VideoCoin Founder & CEO CEO Halsey Minor, CTO Devadutta Ghat and Director of Ecosystem Development Kellam Ames had to say in the AMA.*
*This AMA has been edited for clarity.
WC (Wolf Crypto Telegram Member)
Welcome to another edition of Wolf Crypto AMA, this time with VideoCoin!
Joining us from the VideoCoin team are VideoCoin Founder & CEO Halsey Minor, CTO Devadutta Ghat and Director of Ecosystem Development Kellam Ames.
Welcome guys, can you please tell us a bit about your backgrounds and what led you to creating the VideoCoin Network?
TEAM & TEAM GOALS
HM
I’ve founded or co-founded companies that now exceed over $145 billion in market value prior to entering the blockchain world. These companies include CNET, salesforce.com, Vignette, OpenDNS, Google Voice, NBCi and in the blockchain arena I first started Uphold in 2013 and began building the VideoCoin Network in 2018.
In addition to founding these companies I built CNET into a NASDAQ 100 company as a founder and CEO.
DG
Hey Everyone! Thanks for having us here today! I’m the CTO here at Live Planet and Principal Architect of VideoCoin.
Before Live Planet, I was the worked at Intel for over 7 year, where I started “Intel Transcode Service”. After that, I was at Cloudera.
KA
Hello everyone. I am a 20 year veteran of executive of sales and marketing at both GE Information Services and JDA focused on the technology sector. I have an MBA in Intl Business and have invested in or been part of start-ups with Halsey since 1994 with CNET.
I love working with high performing teams that are changing the world through disruptive tech and that’s precisely what we do at VideoCoin.
WC
Dev, what does the Intel transcode service do and similar to what you’re doing with VideoCoin?
DG
The Intel Transcode Service was the first business using Intel Hardware accelerated Video Processing in the data center.
We ran a massive video encoding and transcoding operation in data centers, so yes, absolutely, it’s similar to VideoCoin!
WC
Halsey, those are some pretty impressive tech credentials, though it does beg the question, why move into the video space and why blockchain?
Do your friends from companies like Salesforce and CNET look down on you for doing so?
HM
Quite the opposite. I’ve consistently identified new technology trends and built some of the most respected companies within these industries. Blockchain is yet another disruptive technology and I’m building a business that truly helps move the industry forward.
It’s a privilege to get to play a role in the industry.
WC
One last question for you on your background Halsey, VideoCoin isn’t your first foray into blockchain is it, I read recently you were one of the founding members of Bitreserve?
HM
I’ve been in crypto since 2012. I launched Uphold (formally Bitreserve) in 2013 which many of you might know. It was one of the first ways to buy crypto with a bank account.
Uphold is a Cayman’s company with employees in the US. It’s a great service if you have not tried it. Uphold is competitive with Coinbase and connects US, EU and UK bank accounts.
WC
What other media-technology “superstars” do you have on the team past those who are joining us today?
KA
Hanno Basse — he’s now serving as President of Decentralized Media Solutions at Live Planet. Before that he spent the last seven years as the chief technology officer (CTO) at the 20th Century Fox Film studios. And 14 years before that at DIRECTV. He’s got a ton of credentials, patents, and industry respect and connections.
What’s great about having Hanno on the team is that he is a true believer in the VideoCoin vision and an incredibly smart and credible media-technology executive. He first got involved with VideoCoin as an advisor to the project while still Fox CTO. Then when the opportunity presented itself, he decided to come on board full time to help drive the VideoCoin Network implementation to commercial success.
And Hanno’s not the only Big Media executive to be excited about and involved in making the VideoCoin Network vision a reality. We have have:
Ted Schilowitz — he’s the Futurist in Residence at Paramount Pictures / Viacom (incl. MTV, Nickelodeon) and helps this major media company (which is now merging with CBS, so it’s even bigger) explore and adopt all the latest new tech into the business — like blockchain!
Ted has a ton of experience and accomplishment in the media industry and is a huge believer in the VideoCoin Network vision; it’s great to have him on the team.
Similarly, we have John Ward — he’s EVP and CTO at InDemand and was previously Senior Vice President of Content Operations for DIRECTV/AT&T Entertainment Group, responsible for on-air production for the Group’s original entertainment.
John has won 12 Emmy Awards (highest recognition for television production) and has produced a ton of television shows. He knows all the nuts and bolts of production and how the business has transformed into digital video and its direct distribution over the Internet to customers.
He’s an invaluable asset in helping the VideoCoin Network develop to be able to take advantage of the literal cloudburst of production (hundreds of series every year) that all the streaming services like Netflix and others are making. They will all need the services the VideoCoin Network will offer!
HM
We have one of the best teams I’ve ever had in any company. The quality of the team matches the size of the market.
WC
A majority of your team are listed as Live Planet employees on the VideoCoin website and their individual LinkedIn’s.
Can you explain the relationship between the two companies for us?
KA
Absolutely.
In 2017, the Live Planet team had built the world’s best end-to-end VR streaming service centered around an advanced video cloud platform, but was shocked by the cost of VR processing, storage and delivery charged by the existing legacy cloud providers — for example, one Live Planet VR camera, streaming content for 24/7 cost $28,000 for one (1) month. This onerous pricing from the capital intense and centralized legacy cloud providers drove us to search for a solution. We recognized that the innovation and price advantages of decentralized blockchains, and the “sharing economy” models utilized by Uber and AirBnB, could be applied to large scale video infrastructure.
This led to the relationship with the VideoCoin Development Association (VDA) with the VDA engaging Live Planet to bring its strategic, advisory, engineering, and advanced media expertise as the implementation services provider to birth the VideoCoin Network as a viable business solution for all video creators and distributors.
This synergistic partnership follows Halsey’s uber-successful playbook, from Vignette at CNET, to “Dream Force Apps” at SalesForce — i.e. use your own apps as your first customer. Thus, the Live Planet VR cloud is the first app running on the VideoCoin Network.
WC
So what’s the actual corporate structure of VideoCoin?
KA
VideoCoin is a Cayman’s based entity (VideoCoin Development Association Ltd) and the VID token is a legally classified utility token.
LivePlanet is a US based company (as such, we need to be careful legally about questions regarding exchanges, markets or any other speculative nature of this project).
The VideoCoin Development Association engaged Live Planet for its expertise in building video clouds to implement the VideoCoin Network. In fact, as part of the build, Live Planet is contributing its distributed video encoding technology — technology it had been developing with many man years of effort before the VideoCoin project was even conceived — to help build the network.
WC
Just to clarify, Live Planet will be paying to use the VideoCoin network right?
This isn’t some sort of reverse ICO where you’re using funds collected for VideoCoin to build your other real world/non-blockchain business in Live Planet?
KA
First, of course — Live Planet VR is still a customer of the Network and will certainly pay for VideoCoin Network services.
And no, it isn’t a reverse ICO. As we said, the VideoCoin Development Association engaged Live Planet for its expertise in building video clouds to implement the VideoCoin Network. In fact, as part of the build, Live Planet is contributing its distributed video encoding technology — technology it had been developing with many man years of effort before the VideoCoin project was even conceived — to help build the network.
And by the way, having Live Planet VR be a first customer of the VideoCoin Network brings real benefits. It first will drive demand on the Network, guaranteeing a customer out of the gate. This also gives the Network a robust first use case — we’re not building for theoretical customers but rather honing the network from the start in order to compete with AWS (and others) for all video use cases.
(And also, having the Network tuned to process the huge files VR required gives the overall system some future-proofing and ability to handle the enormous data requirements of the large-scale commercial media content providers who are rapidly moving to new, processing-intensive formats such as 8K.)
WC
How many full time team members does the VideoCoin team have in total?
KA
The team size is currently 29 members.
WC
In a sentence or two, what’s the reason for creating the VideoCoin Network and the vision for it?
KA
The VideoCoin Network was born out of the need for a low-cost solution for compute-intensive video processing, combined with the innovation unleashed by the “sharing economy”. The network is designed to reduce cost by harnessing decentralized and distributed computing power on almost any device, through the power of the blockchain.
Why did we do it?
Today, 80% of internet traffic is video, growing at 25% per year. We estimate the total addressable market for video processing at ~$25 billion/year in 2018, growing at that same 25% year in year out.
Because we have experience building video clouds, and experience building blockchain companies, there was a clear opportunity to use decentralization to leverage underutilized compute power and lower the cost of video.
THE VIDEOCOIN NETWORK
WC
Before we get into the technical aspects of the VideoCoin Network, who is actually going to use the network and why?
HM
Video is a big part of the internet, in fact 80% of all internet traffic is Video. ALL of this video goes through some sort of video processing before it hits the internet. SO the market is large.
By comparison file sharing is 6% of traffic. We are going after one of the largest and fastest growing markets in the world and the blockchain makes it all possible.
In the short run, developers consuming video infrastructure services to build products like live security streaming (for example Google Nest) , video game streaming (like Twitch), social video services are the target.
Our vision is to serve every single video packet on the Internet and beyond.
We don’t need to get a lot of growth to create a meaningful service. Just 5% of new growth would be $300m, just as an example.
WC
So is it correct to say, VideoCoin is firstly a protocol and secondary an encoding, storage and distribution network for videos?
If so, how does this differ to something like YouTube? Isn’t that all these things also?
HM
YouTube is a consumer-facing video service. VideoCoin is a video infrastructure service that competes with AWS, Google and other large scale providers for encoding, storage, and delivery.
A competitor to YouTube could actually use the VideoCoin Network as its infrastructure.
WC
How will that work?
Another developer will build a YouTube that operates on top of the VideoCoin streaming service?
DG
Right!
Imagine you’re a developer and you are choosing how to build your app, you have a choice between using AWS or VideoCoin for all your video encoding and streaming needs.
WC
What sort of streaming are you referring to here?
Is this is just movies or could be anything like gaming etc?
DG
Yeah!
Developers consuming video infrastructure services to build products like live security streaming (example Google Nest) , video game streaming (like Twitch), social video services are good examples.
WC
Do you have development tools to allow this to happen?
How easy is it?
AWS has a lot of tools that makes things very easy for developers to do complex tasks.
DG
Exactly! We have the REST API’s and tools that will be hosted here —
Just so we’re clear, studio API’s will launch on August 27th.
If you want to get a preview, check this stream —
WC
Regarding cost, can you explain the differences between how media is served currently as to how it was previously and how this has affected the cost of distribution?
HM
The current marketplace for video processing and distribution is dominated by a very small circle of major players — AWS, Google, Microsoft, and a few smaller ones. This centralized oligarchy tends to constrain innovation, create vendor lock-in, and keep costs higher than they would otherwise be.
By deploying unused computing power, the VideoCoin project estimates it will lower costs by at least 50% of prevailing market rates from centralized providers of similar services.
WC
As we all know, the blockchain is good for certain things, and storage certainly isn’t one of them.
What aspects of the VideoCoin network will be onchain and what will be offchain?
DG
Don’t tell that to FIleCoin. Lol.
We use the blockchain as a protocol ledger. All the protocol activities are brokered and recorded on the blockchain, including proofs of work (proof of transcoding), reputation management and resource negotiation.
All high-throughput and compute operations like transcoding and storage happen off chain. The proof of those activities however is stored onchain.
WC
Is VideoCoin a native blockchain?
Or a bastardised version of Ethererum?
DG
Haha. Bastardized Ethereum is harsh. In that case Quorum is what? ;)
VideoCoin Protocol Ledger is based on Geth, yes. Because Geth (and Parity) have done so much great work, it makes most sense to use that.
KA
We are are extending geth via smart contracts AND protocol changes to help us do the following —
Protocol Ledger — VideoCoin Protocol manages live streams on the VideoCoin Network, facilitates transactions between workers, consumers and the network. Transactions are undertaken with the Native VID token.
Learn more about the VideoCoin Protocol —
Proof of Transcoding — When workers livestream video, they produce chunks of work, for challenge response, calculate a verifiable Proof of Compute and record it to the VideoCoin blockchain. The verifiable proof of compute is presently based on Perceptual hash computation and the network is slated to transition into a zkSNARK-based verifiable proof of compute. Learn more here.
Reputation Management and Staking — Workers stake VideoCoins to establish, grow and exert reputation on performing work on the network. If workers perform verifiably correct work, they get compensated. Staked VID tokens get slashed if workers perform malicious activity.
WC
So on the transactionary side of things, will VideoCoin have its own wallet?
And is it custodial or non custodial?
DG
Right now, VID is bridged in to our native blockchain via ETH Mainnet.
Mainly because we wanted the best and easiest access to VID for developers and users. You can use your ETH wallets for the VID token.
WC
What’s the difference between encoding and transcoding?
Does VideoCoin use both?
DG
A small semantic distinction, but VideoCoin essentially does both depending on the job requirements.
Encoding refers to taking “raw” unprocessed video and compressing (encoding) it using one of many possible video compression standards or “codecs” (e.g., H.264, MPEG-2, ProRes), to reduce size and bandwidth requirements. (Some define encoding as the conversion of analog material to digital, but in our case, all incoming material would be digital already.)
Transcoding refers to converting a source video file, possibly already compressed (encoded), to one or more additional formats, using any number of different codecs and settings. Generally speaking, transcoding is usually used to generate multiple video qualities/formats from a single source. This is done because different end-user devices/platforms require different video formats, and varying bandwidth requirements (including dynamically-changing bandwidth availability) demand the use of various compression levels and even compression standards (codecs) to achieve smooth streaming playback with minimal loss of quality.
WC
So does video encoding and transcoding happen faster on the VideoCoin network due to it being distributed?
Or is it just cheaper?
DG
A bit of both. The VideoCoin Network is not primarily about increasing video processing speed. It is aimed at reducing cost, and optimizing processing on the network by algorithmically-driven selection of the best worker nodes.
That said, the Network’s distributed approach does enable faster processing because it splits an encoding task into several subtasks and processes them in parallel. This enables the production of video content consisting of much higher frame rates on commodity hardware. This is especially important for live streaming and for VR video content, which requires a frame rate of 30 FPS as opposed to 1 FPS for standard video content.
A given video processing job will, as part of its specifications, include the desired frame rate and overall turnaround time (speed of processing), which is factored-in to the selection of the appropriate Worker Node(s).
WC
What’s the difference in the encoding times and bandwidth requirements for different types of videos?
How is this important moving forward as the Internet becomes more video based?
DG
Video processing encode/transcode and bandwidth varies widely depending on the source files and the desired output. For example, smartphone video would be on the lower end for both, while 8K VR video shot with pro cameras would be on the high end for both encode and bandwidth.
As you noted, optimization of video processing resources tailored to the specific job, as well as distribution/streaming network management, will likely become increasingly important. VideoCoin is well positioned to address the compute and storage aspects of this due to its distributed network architecture.
WC
Can you explain how data centers work on the VideoCoin network?
Do they process or store videos? And why would they be involved in the first place?
DG
Data Centers (actually, all Worker Nodes) are the core of the Network — they do the work, and are compensated for it in payment and token rewards.
Worker Nodes can offer their services to process (encode/transcode), store, and/or distribute video files. Each Worker Node is scored based on performance and staking, and thereby has a specific probability of being selected by the VideoCoin Network’s algorithm to work on a specific job or portion of a job. Of course, they would only be selected for encoding if they offer that as one of their services; ditto for storage and distribution.
WC
So how realistic is it that a user at home will be involved in the backend of the VideoCoin network?
It sounds like Data Centers will dominate the serving of content as they already do in the traditional space due to their increased bandwidth, low latency and better reliability compared to home users?
DG
It is likely that most of the work on the Network will be performed by data centers exploiting their unused/underused/dormant capacity. But there is no reason smaller, even individual home users, can’t be part of the Network, and selected based on their capability and performance.
The algorithm is designed to set aside a portion of the Worker Nodes chosen for new and smaller entrants, to keep the ecosystem balanced and growing. Multiple Worker Nodes of varying size and capacity may perform portions of the total work for a given processing task as it is split into multiple parallel subtasks.
WC
You’ve made a recent claim as being the first “fiat-based blockchain business”.
Can you explain what the basis for this claim is?
KA
Because of our strong Hollywood media connections, we recognized that most large media publishers, indeed, most video processing customers (especially larger corporations like media studios and production service providers), will never be comfortable transacting in cryptocurrency of any kind. Frankly, it’s a fatal flaw of our industry and the number one barrier to adoption.
In March 2019 we announced that we are partnering with a third-party company to provide seamless conversion of fiat currency — used by publisher customers to pay for services — to a tokenized form of fiat that is used internally within the VideoCoin Network to compensate Workers and Stakers.
Thus, we can leverage both fiat (cash) payments, alongside the utility of the VID token, to enable and optimize processing within the network, without exposing anything about crypto to a typical business customer. Most ICO d’App projects will have this same on-board and adoption issue when they approach actual enterprise customers.
WC
So mining rewards will be paid primarily in fiat and a small amount in tokens?
What’s the breakdown between the two and how will this work in practice?
Will miners need to KYC and connect up a bank account?
KA
Essentially, yes. The Workers (aka miners) are directly paid for their services in fiat — they receive the majority of the job cost paid by customers. In addition, a small percentage of the initial payment is used by the Network to buy VID tokens on the open market at the currently prevailing price.
These tokens are then delivered to the Workers (and a portion to their Stakers) as “good guy” rewards upon verified completion of the work. These token rewards contribute to building the stake of those Workers, increasing their probability of being selected for future work.
WC
What is Proof of Transcoding and is this just a different take on Proof of Work?
DG
Proof of Transcoding is a consensus algorithm similar to a typical proof-of-work, using Ethereum-based smart contracts. It differs from proof-of-work in that it is specific to video processing, and the work must be confirmed by Verifier Nodes.
WC
How is zkSNARKs useful when it comes to Proof of Transcoding?
KA
zkSNARKS helps us perform ON Chain Proof of Transcoding.
Something we’re super excited about, because these zkSNARKS let us remove what would otherwise be complex oracles that need to run on the network performing verifier work.
DG
WC
What about Proof of Stake?
How does this work on VideoCoin and why is it required?
DG
Workers stake VideoCoins to establish, grow and exert reputation on performing work on the network. If workers perform verifiably correct work, they get compensated.
Staked VID tokens get slashed if workers perform malicious activity. That’s why we need staking.
WC
Do you have any sort of mechanism to stop reputation being gamed?
DG
Yes!
It’s a complex algorithm, based on how long you hold tokens and how many you held.
WC
How does reputation work in that context?
The more reputation you have the more jobs you’ll get as a worker?
DG
Right!
Reputation is based on your past performance and your present mining resources.
WC
Do you currently have any metrics for Proof of Stake?
How many tokens will be required to participate in staking on VideoCoin?
KA
We will have this available around our K2 release, the next quarter after our Fuji release.
WC
Can anyone become a validator or are there other requirements past staking tokens in the VideoCoin wallet?
DG
Users will need to stake a minimum number of tokens and hold them for a particular duration before you can become a validator (verifier).
WC
Can you explain how mining works on the VideoCoin network and how ordinary users will be able to participate in the mining process?
DG
Mining in VideoCoin network is actual work. So we call them workers. Workers perform video encoding, storage and distribution work.
When they perform the required work and submit proofs to the blockchain, they get compensated in Fiat and reputation is increased or decreased using VID.
WC
Will there be an easy-to-install application users can download to become a miner on the VideoCoin network?
DG
Yes. We’ll be supplying a Docker image for this.
WC
Do miners simply process videos or do they have any other purpose on the VideoCoin Network?
DG
Miners process video, verify proofs and some workers will seal blocks.
WC
Is VideoCoin all VR or is it for normal video too?
KA
No, we must be very clear here — it is not just for VR. VR was just the use case that illustrated the problems of working with centralized existing video processing infrastructure. Much. Too. Costly.
So VR creators/distributors will benefit greatly from using the VideoCoin Network because of their high video processing requirements, but so will ALL VIDEO CONTENT creator/distributors — the Network works with any type of video content and is designed from the ground up to be agnostic to the type of video.
WC
Regarding privacy, how does VideoCoin ensure this isn’t taken too far, and the network is abused by people uploading illegal content, such as child pornography being uploaded/hosted/streamed on the network?
KA
This is a difficult question. We are not really in a position, either technically or legally, to unilaterally inspect and police content that runs through the system, and the VideoCoin Network is also not a user-facing streaming platform.
To the degree that we are made aware of illegal or other abusive content is being processed by the VideoCoin Network, we have the ability to ban users (publishers) who are engaging in the illegal activity, and we will have safeguards in place should that arise.
WC
How about DMCA takedown requests? Or GDPR compliance in Europe?
KA
Same as above — if we received takedown requests, we could remove offending content as requested by a responsible party. But again, since we are not user-facing, such requests would be unlikely to come to us directly.
We deal in video file data passing through the Network — proactively monitoring and blocking specific content would be akin to the Telco’s blocking phone calls due to illegal conversations.
THE VID TOKEN
WC
What is the utility of the VID token and how is a user incentivized to use it?
KA
The VideoCoin token, called VID, will have advanced utility as a reputational staking token. With the VID, Proof of Transcoding is a consensus algorithm similar to a typical proof-of-work, using Ethereum-based smart contracts. It differs from proof-of-work in our model in that it is specific to video processing, and the work (mining) must be confirmed by Verifier Nodes. Workers (miners) will be selected based on three factors: quoted price, number of staked tokens, and performance. This drives the least expensive and highest quality resources to be selected for work. The best rise to the top…Upon completion of verified work, the system’s networking protocol will disburse to workers (miners) both fiat payments and additional VID tokens, which further builds their reputation.
In addition, workers may participate in third party staking services to enhance their reputationalreputational token stake. This competitive “reward based” token staking model generates value and rewards for workers (miners) and participants alike.
All of this adds up to a revolutionary blockchain infrastructure for next generation video services, tapping global network compute power to deliver dramatic cost reductions, reduce friction, encourage adoption, and spark innovation.
WC
Is the VID token an ERC20 token?
DG
Presently, the VID token is bridged in from ETH Mainnet, so we use an ERC20 token.
WC
Ok, I see on your Github there is a token bridge.
How will this work once implemented?
DG
It is complete. We are already using this bridge to send in ERC20. It’s not open source yet, but it will be soon.
WC
What about other parts of the network, when will they be open sourced?
DG
Our open source model is similar to WordPress. Our plan is to open source everything that is needed to set up decentralized video infrastructure. We’ve started open sourcing many components already.
More coming in the next few days.
WC
Can you explain why a non-inflationary model has been used for the token and how this is important in the VideoCoin ecosystem?
KA
Yes. Highly inflationary environments are not recommended for real-world business. Inflationary token economics has no basis for value creation other than the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO).
The general tokenomic model used by majority of ICOs in the 2017 frenzy were fundamentally flawed.
VideoCoin burned 70% of our original inflationary token supply and will cap tokens at the current 265M level and mint no future tokens.
WC
You said earlier that miners are still paid a portion of their mining rewards in tokens, where do these tokens come from?
Didn’t you burn all the miner tokens as mentioned above?
KA
Reward tokens are automatically purchased by the Network from exchanges, at the then-prevailing price, when a job is started.
These are later awarded to the selected Worker Node(s) upon verified completion of work. The number of tokens purchased (and awarded) is proportional to the job cost.
WC
How about stakers/validators? They receive rewards in tokens or also in fiat?
KA
Both.
Stakers receive a portion of the fiat (tokenized) payments to the Worker Nodes they stake. In addition they receive proportional amounts of the VID token rewards that the Workers earn for completed and verified work. The exact splits are dependent on the contractual terms between Stakers and their staked Workers.
Validators, or Verification Nodes, are special cases of Workers. They too receive both fiat payments for their work, and VID token rewards.
PARTNERSHIPS
WC
So LivePlanet VR is the first and most obvious partner of the VideoCoin Nnetwork. While it’s great to see an initial use case for the network it’s hard to imagine the network will survive with just one client/partner.
Who else do you expect to onboard along the way?
KA
On August 8 we announced the Blockchain VR Network live on VideoCoin!
We have the biggest voices in crypto to a new VR network called the Blockchain VR network.
It features the top blockchain influencers in the crypto-sphere and is growing quickly. This means the people who advise about tokens projects and economics run on the VideoCoin network today.
As we roll out our quarterly tech releases we will announce new partners. The BVRN is important because it keeps awareness of our project high and growing.
HM
This is just the beginning!
We will stream major crypto events and connect crypto traders with the thought leaders who move the market using the VideoCoin network infrastructure.
WC
How close are we to having major companies start implementing VideoCoin?
Obviously a big infrastructure set up but curious on fundamental time frame.
DG
We want to start with video live streaming workloads and get the quality of the network to the level necessary for a Hollywood studio. That’s a process.
WC
Data Center partners are pretty self explanatory, but who and what are streaming partners?
DG
Streaming partners are just our starting point, as its’ a very small piece of the overall video space. But, as you can see, we have rock star studio execs on our team, including the ex-CTO of 20th Century Fox. So we are on the right track!
WC
Be honest, how realistic is it that someone like Netflix or Hulu would use a network like VideoCoin?
DG
Honestly, the Video market is SO BIG, Netflix is a small part of it. It would be great to get Netflix, and we have the best Hollywood Business Development team out there with Hanno Basse and Seth Shapiro, but the opportunity is so large… think about your Nest Doorbell or Arlo Security Camera or the Camera that your city runs to record traffic..
We don’t realize, but all of this is VIDEO. Self driving cars.. VIDEO. So video is exploding. We’re in a good market.
WC
Video door bells,. we really are living in the future…I’m too much of a rekt pleb to have a video door bell though…
Everyone seems to get caught up in the big names we all know, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu etc.
From your experiences, can you highlight some other companies or niches in the video space that VideoCoin would be perfect for?
KA
There are tons of use cases
- Video Door Bells
- Security Cameras
- Smart Cities
- Self Driving Cars
- Social video
- Next generation apps we haven’t even thought of yet
COMPETITORS
WC
Does VideoCoin have any competitors in the Blockchain space?
KA
Video is a BIG market and a lot of players are trying different things. We like this blog by Zokama —
Slightly outdated, but still awesome. The most interesting decentralized competitor to us is FileCoin and the IPFS protocol. This project very publicly raised $250M to build a decentralized service model of unused compute, but is only focused on storage solution with IPFS, that competes with DropBox essentially.
They have not made any announcements of a launch, and storage accounts for 6% of the internet. Video represents 80% of the internet and VideoCoin is going after this marketshare. We like our chances 🙂
WC
Ok, how about in the real world then?
You used a pricing example earlier comparing costs to AWS. Is AWS the only traditional competitor to VideoCoin or are there others?
KA
AWS, Google, Microsoft Azure and Alibab are main competitors in Video.
WC
You mentioned earlier that VideoCoin is competitive with AWS and the like on a cost basis.
Are you competitive in any other ways?
KA
We believe by being an open and decentralized network we allow for innovation to return to video. Because Google, Amazon and Facebook control video there has been limited innovation in the last 10 years.
ICO & TOKEN SUPPLY
WC
Did VideoCoin do a public ICO or was the entire public sale done as a private raise?
KA
We did not do an ICO.
VideoCoin raised funds through a private offering.
WC
How did raising the entire sale as a private sale impact your standing with the SEC?
I know they haven’t been too fond of ICO’s of late…
KA
Very favorably, we did not do a public ICO and only raised funds privately, adherering to full KYC/AML procedures and compliance.
WC
How much did VideoCoin raise in total and was this amount raised in ETH?
KA
We hit our hard cap of $50M USD.
WC
Did you liquidate the ETH or whatever you raised through at that time or you lost out on the market damping?
KA
VideoCoin had an internal treasury strategy to liquidate ETH at time of sale. The project did sustain leakage in selling ETH because it was dropping quickly but because we sold when received we are much better off than most other projects.
We did not speculate on Ethereum.
WC
When did VideoCoin raise funds?
KA
November 2017-June 2018.
WC
Did you have any notable VC’s or individuals contribute to the project during the private sale?
KA
Notable Contributors include Mike Novogratz and Galaxy Digital, Alphabit Fund, Binary Financial, Science Blockchain, Distributed Network Advisors, Tokenstack Partners, Arcadia Crypto Ventures, Jump Investors, Lvna Capital, Team In Residence, iCapital, GRIT CAPITAL, RenGen.io, AlphaCoin Fund, Origin Capital and Polybius Capital.
WC
What will the circulating supply of VID be on launch of trading and how much of the overall supply will VideoCoin control?
KA
15% of first year supply at launch or approx 18M tokens on the launch of trading.
Original supply was 880M tokens. In March 2019, VideoCoin announced we burned 70% of inflationary mining tokens, so the total supply is now 265M fixed.
WC
Why did you make the choice of restricting the initial token supply for the first year?
KA
We will release tokens as we grow the capabilities of the platform — 4 quarterly software capacity releases on the “Road to Everest”.
WC
How have private sale contributors reacted to a phased release of their tokens?
KA
Our private sale contributors generally understand this is required, and it’s best for the project. Also, they all receive a 15% bonus token as a thank you.
EXCHANGES
WC
Since you raised funds so long ago, why did it take you so long to list your token?
KA
VideoCoin wanted to get to working software with utility on the network prior to releasing its tokens. For a host of reasons in the crypto industry, this has proved to be a prudent decision.
This past March the VideoCoin Development Association made major enhancements to project tokenomics and integrated third party partners to avoid fatal flaws seen with other projects, primarily around on-boarding enterprise customers.
WC
Why are you doing a straight list on KuCoin and not an IEO?
KA
We have been advised by legal to not comment on any potential exchanges that the VDA may be engaged with, but we are listing on the KuCoin exchange, and participating in the KuCoin Play program, and Beaxy to start, and there will be future announcements coming soon.
WC
This was posted by an investor of VideoCoin that might explain some of the things the team are now allowed to say…
“While everyone’s bags got rekt last year and ICOs dried up, the exchanges were re-tooling ways to increase revenues and re-capture market drive. This new vehicle, called the “IEO”, has become pervasive, having raised $119M in 1st qtr 2019. So why didn’t VID jump that train?
Initially, a top exchange approved VID after winning voting in October 2018. The deal was near completion when they suffered a major PR blow in March. I am not assigning guilt here, but this negative PR event poured cold water on the VID listing and caused the VDA to change course.
After the disappointment, VDA embarked on negotiations with the other exchanges to program a listing and agreed to participate in an IEO, largely to gain marketing hype and re-engergize the project after a long delay. So why didn’t they end up doing this? For good reasons. Simply put, an IEO can punish existing contributors. It suceeds by discounting existing contributors pre-sale token price by 50–80% in order to participate.
Additionally, to exclusively launch with the top tier, they can demand additional ‘funds’ of enormous amounts.
In my opinion, the VDA and VideoCoin team have made the right decision. They are not “betting the farm” or “selling out early contributors” just to get a big name IEO. The KuCoin exchange is the right starting point, and gives token liquidity to those of us that have been patiently waiting. This is the start point with a token backed by real, useable software with great utility. Further it gives a solid roadmap for listings into bigger exchanges as current market allows and the product matures.”
ROADMAP & FUTURE GROWTH
WC
The roadmap on the website hasn’t been updated, despite communication from VideoCoin’s end to contributors that it has now changed significantly. You’ve used the phrase, “The Road to Everest” in these emails.
Can you explain what this means and what the current roadmap is?
DG
We understand that disrupting the biggest traffic generator on the internet — Video is not an easy task. It’s like climbing everest and one needs to climb smaller peaks before we get there. So we’ve called our releases after mountains, starting with VideoCoin Fuji Release, moving on to Kilimanjaro, K2 and finally Everest. These releases are planned to be separated by a quarter, gives us enough time to build and scale network functionality.
Updated roadmap page is going to be launched on Aug 27th along with a roadmap blog. But we are super excited about the upcoming launch, which is going to bring the following features —
WC
How about the whitepaper?
When I was researching for this AMA I noticed it was dated in 2017…
DG
Much like BTC, we use the whitepaper as an initial vision. The VideoCoin project’s core architecture and philosophy is derived from the white paper. As we’ve moved forward, we’ve made several technical breakthroughs and those are covered in depth in our video streams, demos and medium blogs.
We will alo start writing specs like BIPs or EIPs, which were derived from PIPs the O.G.
WC
Dev, you’ve spoken about developers a few times and how people can built on VideoCoin, do you have any developers registered to do so?
DG
When we opened up our Alpha in January, more than a hundred developers signed up without any marketing. We expect to get a healthy waiting list with our Fuji Launch.
WC
Has the VideoCoin smart contract been audited?
DG
Yes!
WC
You mentioned you had a Github earlier and you’d be open sourcing various components of the network.
Can you link us to us so we can keep up to date with your progress?
DG
CLOSING THOUGHTS
WC
That’s a wrap for now, thanks again to the VideoCoin guys for being here!
DG
Thanks a lot for having us here!
KA
Thanks everyone!
HM
Thanks everybody! Looking forward to building something that proves what we all know, blockchain will profoundly change the way business works!
VideoCoin Resources
Website: https://www.videocoin.io
Telegram: https://t.me/videocoin
Medium: https://medium.com/videocoin
Github: https://github.com/videocoin
Whitepaper: https://storage.googleapis.com/videocoin-preico/VideoCoin-Whitepaper.pdf
Telegram: https://t.me/videocoin
Medium: https://medium.com/videocoin
Github: https://github.com/videocoin
Whitepaper: https://storage.googleapis.com/videocoin-preico/VideoCoin-Whitepaper.pdf
Wolf Crypto Resources
Public Group: https://t.me/WolfCryptoPub
News Channel: https://t.me/WolfCryptoAnnounce
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WolfCryptoGroup
News Channel: https://t.me/WolfCryptoAnnounce
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WolfCryptoGroup
Bitcointalk username: fair111
Bitcointalk link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2660645
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